


Way Beyond

by corgasbord



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Angst, Character Study, F/F, Other characters mentioned - Freeform, Virtual Reality, postgame, this isn't a happy or romantic fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-12 17:11:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15344559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corgasbord/pseuds/corgasbord
Summary: In the aftermath of the killing game, Kaede tries to figure out how she should feel about all that happened - provided that she can feel anything at all.





	Way Beyond

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fatiguedfern](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fatiguedfern/gifts).



> this is... very VERY belated, but happy birthday, klara! i don't think i've actually written tsumugi before, but i hope what i've gotten down here meets your discerning standards, haha.

No one mourns the wicked.

That’s simply the way of things, whether in fiction or reality. It’s why everyone can watch Korekiyo die and feel a little bit better about it. It’s why tears get shed over Kaito, everyone’s hero, and not over the villain whom he’d declared his rival. It’s why when the curtain falls for the final time, no one bats an eye when the person who’d helped set the stage is crushed beneath its rubble.

Kaede sits in the common room of a hospital with a growing group of others who should be dead and watches the murder mystery game that she lost play out in full HD. She watches the promise her companions made with her get broken over and over again. She sees with her own eyes just how evil others can truly be, and she bears witness to the retribution they receive.

And it almost alarms her how little she feels.

Even when she is posthumously vindicated and the person who had her killed for a crime she didn't commit is reduced to a bloody smear on the pavement, Kaede thinks about how she _should_ feel. She should be angry that she was framed. She should be upset about all of the deaths that could have been prevented. She should be proud of her surviving classmates for ending it all.

She should feel sick satisfaction bubble up in her like bile when Tsumugi dies. She doesn’t.

Shuuichi, Maki, and Himiko stumble out of the ruins of the school together, miraculously unharmed, and Kaede is numb as she reaches over to shut the TV off.

The action is immediately met with protest from the few others in the room. “H-Hey, you’re not supposed to do that!” Tenko says.

“Yeah, what the hell,” Kaito gripes from up on the couch. Kokichi sits curled on the opposite end of it, strangely quiet. “We weren’t finished watching it, either!”

“But it’s over, isn’t it?” Slowly, Kaede gets to her feet, not meeting anyone’s gaze. “They won. So they’ll probably be out soon.”

Realization lights up Kaito’s face. “Oh… shit, you’re right,” he says. “Shit. Shit, we should- we should be there when they wake up. Let them know everyone’s okay.”

Angie hums, rocking a bit on Tenko’s other side. “Patience is a virtue, Kaito. God told Angie that charging into places you’re not supposed to be will upset the nurses, and they’ll have to make you very, very sleepy… again.”

Kaito sulks. “It shouldn’t be _that_ big of a deal. I mean, they’re our friends, and we’ve got a right to see them. Right?”

No one answers him. Suddenly and without saying anything, Kokichi gets up and walks out of the room.

“Ouma- hey, hang on a second! Ouma!” Kaito calls after him. With a sense of finality, the door closes behind the other boy. A conflicted sort of scowl settles alongside the shadows on Kaito’s worryingly gaunt face. He’s gotten that look a lot around Kokichi, Kaede’s noticed. It’s a look that craves pursuit, craves answers, yet is uncertain as to whether it would be worth the trouble.

“I’m going back to my room, too,” Kaede says, drawing the confused stare of the room’s remaining three occupants. “Momota-kun, I think Ouma-kun needs some time to himself. The others might, too. We should let them have their space for a while.”

With that, she leaves, and resigns herself to another solitary night in a too-stiff bed.

\------

The last time Kaede thought she might cry was after she woke up.

It wasn’t when she’d been faced with the shock of being alive, or when a Team _Dangan Ronpa_ employee had explained everything about her situation to her. It was when, after a few days of testing to ensure that her condition was stable, she was allowed to visit the common room and meet the hapless victim of her scheme.

Rantarou had never been angry at her. She thinks she would have preferred anger to the quiet and lax demeanor he carries himself with, but when he’d seen her he’d waved absentmindedly and gone back to his jigsaw puzzle. It's strange, even, how forgiving he is, like he doesn't know that he _should_ resent her in the first place.

It's become less strange since she’s noticed that some days, it doesn't seem like all of him is there to begin with.

“I heard that it'll probably be at least a week before we're allowed to see them.” Rantarou’s mellow voice comes from behind Kaede as he leisurely drags a brush through her hair.

Kaede sits up straighter, turning her head in an attempt to glance at him. “Huh?”

“The survivors,” he clarifies, holding the brush aside. “They'll probably take the most time to recover from what happened, what with the stir they've caused and all the attention they're getting. Right now they're being kept out of the public eye.”

“Oh.” Kaede tilts her head back down. “I see.”

“Ah, I'm not sure how all of this will affect Shirogane-san, though,” Rantarou continues, like he didn't hear her. “Kiibo-kun’s AI has probably been contained, so I doubt we'll see him at all. But Shirogane-san had such a big role in production that I don't know what they'll do with her.”

Kaede balls her fists in the fabric of her hospital gown. “Why does it matter?”

“Hm?” Rantarou makes a noise like he's been dragged off a train of thought. “Oh, I guess it might not. I'm just thinking aloud, don't mind me.”

It must be one of his half-present days, Kaede decides as she shifts her weight further onto one thigh, knees drawing up higher on the couch. It doesn't normally bother her when he gets like this. With as much time as she's found herself spending with him, he's proven amicable and generally pleasant to be around. Still, the way he so carelessly speaks of the fate of the remaining students sets her skin prickling. Unconsciously, she sets her jaw.

“How can you talk about that so casually?” she asks.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Rantarou says.

“I mean… well, what happened, and also Shirogane-san,” Kaede says. “You just don’t seem bothered by any of it.”

He falls silent for just long enough that Kaede almost starts to think he didn't hear her. Then the brush resumes its movements through her hair, idle and soothing. “I think I was at one point,” he says, feeling out his words with more care than usual. “But I ended up becoming resigned to it. I guess I’m so used to it that I forgot that I probably should be upset.”

He laughs softly, but there’s no joy in it. He’s brushed and brushed and brushed Kaede’s hair so thoroughly by now that he hasn’t met any resistance for a good few minutes, but only now does he stop to take a few strands between his fingers.

“It should bother you the most out of anyone,” Kaede says.

Rantarou hums. “Maybe.” He begins to weave locks of her hair into a thin braid along the side of her head.

Kaede goes quiet, pensive. Minutes pass, minutes that she spends in her own mind, letting Rantarou do as he pleases. She can’t blame him for being so desensitized to the horror of their reality that he takes it all in stride. She can’t blame him for whatever parts of himself were misplaced after what Team _Dangan Ronpa_ did to him. Still, she pulls her lips between her teeth and thinks that it’s strange and even sad that Rantarou doesn’t have it in him to be upset about his fate anymore.

It’s strange and even sad that he can’t indicate how Kaede should feel, either.

“And what about Shirogane-san,” she continues belatedly. “I mean, she- she _killed_ you. Don’t you resent her at all?”

Rantarou is already making another braid down the opposite side of Kaede’s head. “Hm. Do I resent Shirogane-san,” he repeats to himself. There’s more gravity to his tone than before. “I would say… yes and no. I think I feel about her the same way as any of the victims here might feel about their killers, but I know that I’m a bit to blame for what happened, too. We all are- we signed up for this.”

“But she orchestrated all of this,” Kaede points out, trying to throw a frown back at him.

Rantarou doesn’t let that deter him from fiddling more with her hair. “Did she? She may have played a big role in it, but I don’t think it’s all her. _Dangan Ronpa_ is produced by a team, after all. She was just as much a player as the rest of us.”

“So,” Kaede says, struggling to understand. “you don’t think it’s her fault, then.”

“It’s more like…” Rantarou trails off for a long moment. “Who are we supposed to blame, exactly? We were willing participants. We all wanted to be a part of this in one life.” He gathers both of the half-finished braids he made and pulls them back, linking them behind her skull. “And then there is Shirogane-san, of course, who helped to facilitate all of this, but she was only one member of a larger team of people with even more authority than her. You could say that what Team _Dangan Ronpa_ is doing is wrong - and I’d agree, because I did try to stop it - but they’re feeding an audience. They have millions of fans worldwide. Society let this game continue.”

Kaede’s palms sting beneath the increasing bite of her own fingernails. “But she knew more than we did, and- and she cheated,” she insists. “She cheated and we both died all so that this sick game could keep going, and that shouldn’t have happened.”

“Oh, I’m not saying you have to forgive her or anything. Between you and me, well… I don’t like her, either. Maybe I even hate her a little bit, haha.” There it is again, that joyless laugh. “But I’m trying to put things into perspective, here. She may have killed us, but she’s not the only one, y’know?”

He completes the braid and ties it off with one of the hairbands begrudgingly afforded him by a nurse. Then he leans his side into the couch, one arm folded over the back of it. Kaede turns, legs slipping to bend properly over the edge of her seat, but she still keeps her eyes on her lap instead of Rantarou.

“I dunno if we’ll get to see her again,” Rantarou says. “Doubt anyone is too fond of her now that the truth has come out, but that was to be expected. Still, it could be a problem for them.”

“I think if I ever saw her again, it’d be too soon,” Kaede mutters darkly.

Rantarou chuckles again and lifts his hands. “I get it. We don’t have to keep talking about this if it’s bugging you.”

“It’s fine,” she says. She tries for a smile, but the pull on her cheeks feels forced even to her. “Oh, and thanks for doing my hair again. I’m sure it looks nice.” She never knows what it’s going to be because she doesn’t ask, and he never seems to know what he’s doing himself until he’s halfway done, but it’s always different, braids or ponytails or buns. It’s a distraction, a pleasant reprieve just like anything else they do here.

“No problem,” Rantarou assures her in the same laidback way he always does. “Lemme know if you want me to do anything else.”

“I think I’m good for now.” The last coat of nail polish he gave her is starting to chip, but there’s enough to keep her from gnawing them down to the skin. Besides, the need to flee is creeping up her spine again, a restlessness that she can’t shake. Rantarou’s presence is calming, but only ever for so long. Kaede stands and continues, “I’m gonna head back to my room, though. I’m a little tired.”

Rantarou’s stare is more lucid than Kaede’s ever seen it. “I get it,” he says, all too knowingly. “Try not to wear yourself out too much, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Kaede parrots back, quiet.

She wasn’t lying. She is tired - but then, she always is. They all are. But while Angie and Kaito cling to the people _Dangan Ronpa_ made them because they don’t know what else to be and Kokichi and Rantarou don’t bother because they’ve never known what they were to begin with, Kaede shuts herself off in her room when it all gets to be too much and tries to find herself in the tacky wallpaper peeling around her.

She refuses to dwell on the impossibility of finding something when you don’t know what you’re looking for.

\------

The very next day, Kaede is informed that she has a visitor that she’ll need to remain in her bed for. She doesn’t know what that means until the plainest girl she’s ever seen enters the room.

Reflexively, her back straightens. “You-!”

Tsumugi smiles sweetly and waves. “Me!”

The nurse glances nervously between Tsumugi and Kaede. Then, in a voice low enough that he must think Kaede won’t hear it, he begins to ask Tsumugi, “Should I-”

Tsumugi silences him with a raise of her palm. “You may leave.”

He balks. “Are you sure?”

“I can handle it,” Tsumugi says. “We’re just going to do some catching up, and that’s a bit tough with someone who’s been sedated.”

Disgust forms a lump in Kaede’s throat as Tsumugi chuckles quietly, privy to a joke no one else in the room wants to understand. Reluctantly, the nurse leaves with a reminder that Tsumugi can call for someone at any time, but Tsumugi waves him off as she moves to take a seat next to Kaede’s bed. The smile still hasn’t left her face.

Kaede is struck with the urge to lean over and throttle her. She doesn’t. She swallows down the palpable disgust clogging her windpipe and asks monotonously, “What are you doing here.”

“Ah, I guess you are still mad at me after all,” Tsumugi sighs. “Well, I was expecting as much. It’s fine, though. I didn’t come here thinking you’d forgive me or anything.” She locks her fingers together calmly. “The reason I came here was actually to thank you.”

Kaede’s brows knit, equal parts suspicious and bemused. “Thank me for what?”

“For helping to really make this season of _Dangan Ronpa_ what it was,” Tsumugi says. “All of our participants were important in shaping the story, of course. But you were special. And, well, I’ll admit that I sort of sympathize with the fans who think that they were robbed.”

The way Tsumugi so nonchalantly talks about what happened as though it really were a mere work of fiction instills Kaede with deep unease. Still, curiosity prods her to ask, “What do you mean?”

“Your death was controversial,” Tsumugi says simply. “People plainly loved you. They really wanted to see where you’d take the group in the final battle between hope and despair… but, sadly, someone else got handed the reins. Someone who didn’t even do what he was supposed to with them.”

“Saihara-kun did the right thing,” Kaede says. The glare she gives Tsumugi is steely-eyed. “I don’t care what people thought about me, or him, or anyone else. He did something good, and that’s all that matters.”

“Is it?” Tsumugi tilts her head. “Well, he plainly did more than any of us expected of him, I’ll give him that. I suppose he has you to thank for that, too.” She gives a simpering shake of her head. “Ah, but maybe I’m a little biased. You see, I’ve never been a fan of the trope where a pretty girl dies to develop an otherwise plain male character. I think Saihara-kun’s arc turned out surprisingly good up until the end, though, even if I didn’t get to have full direction over the writing.”

Kaede grips her paper-thin sheets tight with fingers that can no longer be called a pianist’s. “How can you keep talking like that?” Her anger is rising, but not high enough to pull her volume up with it. She’s too tired. She’s so, so tired. “Like we’re all just- just _things_ to you. Like you don’t have any responsibility for ruining people’s lives. I mean,” her face contorts into something ugly and deeply upset, “you killed Amami-kun. You killed _me_. How can you come in here and act like that’s no big deal?”

Tsumugi appears almost puzzled now. “Is it supposed to be a big deal?”

Kaede’s expression flattens. “What?”

“I think,” Tsumugi continues, “that we plainly have different values. You seem to think that I should feel guilty about all of this, but, well… I don’t. And even if I’m not fully satisfied with the way that things turned out, that isn’t going to change my mind.”

Kaede opens her mouth, but not a word leaves it. There isn’t a word that could leave it that would change the reality of this situation.

“It’s not all bad that things have to be this way,” Tsumugi says gently, disingenuous as always. “You can be the heroine, and I can be the villain. I’ve never minded being the villain because, well, it’s nice for a plain girl like me to have a role at all.”

Something about that makes Kaede’s gut twist - with what exactly, she can’t tell. Maybe it’s nausea. Maybe it’s pity.

It must show on her face, because Tsumugi offers her another limp-wristed wave. “Did that sound sad? I didn’t mean for it to, because overall, I’m happy. Sort of disappointed, I suppose, but happy that I got to realize a dream of mine in the first place.” When she looks at Kaede, her eyes shine with something disturbingly fond. “It is plainly unfortunate that you had to be axed to keep the show going, though. If I could’ve picked between you and Saihara-kun, well… between you and me, he would’ve been the one to go. Imagining what might’ve happened then…” Her hands clasp together in front of her. “Ah, that would’ve made for a great story. But I guess it’s always fun to imagine what could have been.”

“Fun? You think this is fun?” Kaede spits. She doesn’t think about how Shuuichi would’ve preferred Tsumugi’s suggested outcome. She doesn’t think about how he was programmed to feel that way, and how she’s been programmed to feel a certain way, too. “You feel bad about killing me because it would’ve been more _fun_ if I’d lived?”

“Well, I always did simply like you, too.” Tsumugi leans a bit closer, and Kaede can no longer tell if her smile is wholly disingenuous. “Of course creators love their creations, but you’re special. I guess you could say I’m playing favorites,” she laughs lightly. “Just know that there’s a reason I wanted to visit you and not the others.”

Kaede’s lip curls. “Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

“Yes,” Tsumugi says, “and I mean it, plainly and truly.”

“I don’t want to hear that,” Kaede says. “Not from you.”

“Then what is it that you want to hear, exactly?” Tsumugi asks.

Kaede stares at the increasingly uneven coat of polish on her nails. She recalls how it felt what seems like years ago now when Tsumugi painted them so excitedly and told her how good they looked. Her thumbnail chips a loose pastel flake from her index finger.

Even if Tsumugi would grant her an apology, that wouldn’t undo what’s been done. That wouldn’t fill any of the holes in her mind. That wouldn’t tell her what she’s supposed to do with herself now, what she’s supposed to _be_.

“Nothing you could tell me,” she decides.

“Really?” Tsumugi rests her cheek against her palm. “Well, that’s a shame.”

Kaede’s mouth sets itself into a strained line. “You got what you deserved, though,” she says, chin lifted. “And so did I. I was going to kill someone. Saihara-kun wasn’t.”

“You really do have such a strong sense of justice. It’s so cool,” Tsumugi says, so endeared that Kaede thinks she could hurl. “Do you still feel bad about what you did? Or tried to do, I guess.”

“I was ready to take responsibility for it, wasn’t I?” Kaede mutters, “Unlike you.”

“Oh, Akamatsu-san. I’m still taking responsibility for what I’ve done,” Tsumugi says, so blithely that Kaede almost wonders if they’re even having the same conversation. “I’ve accepted it, though. And it’s okay if you or the others hate me, too. I can’t say that I blame you after everything.” She reaches to brush a few stray bangs out of Kaede’s face. 

Kaede goes completely and utterly still, as though for just those moments she’s under a trance. Tsumugi’s hand is cold. A tingling trail of goosebumps forms behind it as it tucks a strand of hair behind Kaede’s ear, then lingers on the side of her face.

“I’m not very good at goodbyes,” Tsumugi admits wistfully. Her eyes are distant, set on something Kaede can’t see. “I don’t think we’ll see each other again. Maybe it’s wrong of me to hope.”

Her hand retracts what feels like an eternity too late. Then both hands smooth down the pleats of her skirt, and she rises. “I do wish you all the best. I don’t think you’ll have too much trouble adjusting to everything,” she says. The business-like edge is back in her voice until she’s standing in the doorway again with that affectionate look that makes Kaede want to crawl out of her skin. “Oh, and by the way,” she nods at the loose bun gathered at the back of Kaede’s head, “that’s a good look for you.”

The door closes. Kaede isn’t sure what her expression looks like, but the chill of Tsumugi’s hands on her skin has left her number than ever before.

Hatred is what she should feel. Fury is what she should feel. Instead, a profound emptiness occupies her chest.

She closes her eyes and thinks yet again that if she ever did cross paths with Tsumugi it would be too soon. Her unanswered questions gnaw at her, twist her hollow insides further, and so when the nurse tentatively re-enters her room she decides that unconsciousness is her only escape.

And thankfully, as usual, she doesn’t dream.

\------

Two weeks pass. Kaede is told that she’ll be discharged soon, and the news leaves her more lost than relieved. She’ll finally be out of this entire mess for good. She’ll be free to do whatever she wants. Finally, things can go back to normal.

The problem remaining is the question of what exactly “normal” means. This frustrating inquiry brings with it another, equally frustrating: _will I ever know?_

She doesn’t try to answer that one for herself.

The day before she’s scheduled to leave, Shuuichi, Maki, and Himiko are allowed to reintegrate with the rest of the group. The reunion is happier for some than for others.

Within moments, Himiko’s small form is framed on either side by Tenko and Angie. Angie’s all smiles and Himiko is successfully trying not to cry and Tenko is unsuccessfully trying not to cry. Kaito launches himself at Shuuichi and Maki, and they’re not grinning like he is, but they allow him to pull them in close and admonish them for getting all teary-eyed on him and tell them that everything’s fine, that they’ll be okay, now.

And Kaede slips out of the room before her eyes can catch on Shuuichi’s, because she doesn’t know what he thinks of her and she doesn’t know what she thinks of him. As far as she’s concerned, he is a stranger. It’s easier for both of them that way.

Rantarou was right; they don’t see Tsumugi.

It’s easier that way, too.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm starting to think i'm losing my ability to just write normal fluff, lol. i approached this fic from the angle that i don't think tsumugi would be all that apologetic about what she did. a lot of postgame fics portray her that way, but what reason would she have to be guilty? at least, that's my take. 
> 
> anyway, comments/kudos/etc. would be nice if you enjoyed, and i especially hope you liked it, klara!


End file.
